I use convincing words to invoke consensus as a defense and to halt further investigation. As a conjunction, the word “so” means, “and for this reason; therefore.” (Google) “Because” as conjunction means, “for the reason that; since.” (Google) “Then” and “therefore” conjunctions essentially mean the same as “so”.

I think it may have to do with a positive feedback loop. Positive feedback is defined as “the enhancement or amplification of an effect by its own influence on the process that gives rise to it.” (Wikipedia)

Fear is an emotionally influenced response to danger or threat that motivates behaviors to mitigate the danger or threat. Humans and other animals exhibit fear in much the same way physiologically, so the fear response may be quite ancient.

We tend to think of fear as a “negative emotion” that clouds reasoning and drives “negative behaviors.” From an evolutionary point of view, fear may have derived from early surviving species passing on their “fear” genes to us today – giving us an “evolutionary advantage.”

Although behaviors vary widely when the fear response is triggered, let’s investigate three common elements of fear:

William T. Gibson, a Caltech postdoctoral fellow and first author on a study investigating the possibility that fruit flies may experience fear analogous to humans affirms, “…flies have four fundamental drives just as humans do: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and mating.”

He examined fear in flies by looking at the fundamental building blocks of fear, which he calls “emotion primitives” –

First, fear is persistent. If you hear the sound of a gun, the feeling of fear it provokes will continue for a period of time.

Fear is also scalable; the more gunshots you hear, the more afraid you’ll become.

Fear is generalizable across different contexts, but it is also trans-situational. Once you’re afraid, you’re more likely to respond in fear to other triggers: the clang of a pan, for instance, or a loud knock at the door.

I’m a walking projector. As far as I am concerned there is only darkness until I turn on the lights. From MY PERSPECTIVE, the entire world is void and dark until I make it otherwise.

In other words, the world may exist only as a phantom of my imagination of it. Even when considering just the physical level, the universe exists as electrochemical signals flying around within my brain.

Maybe there are people “out there” – outside my head – and maybe not… It certainly SEEMS like there is a world “out there” with which I interact. And yet, what if…